


One Foot.

by HammieSlice



Category: Oxenfree (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Step-siblings, Time Loop, Time Travel, Timelines, and in which alex is tired of everything, give them a break, in which the sunken are assholes, no betas we die like men, please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23118124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HammieSlice/pseuds/HammieSlice
Summary: Jonas and Alex bond over mutual hauntings and supernatural occurrences on Edwards Island. One of them knows exactly what’s been going on. The other just wants to make sure she’s okay.
Relationships: Alex/Jonas (Oxenfree)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	One Foot.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so... This was supposed to be short? Like super short? But apparently now we're just coming full circle to do a chapter fic because I said so and I love these idiots. This is actually the first multi-chapter thing I'm doing without Turner? Which is terrifying and a whole lot of 'please for the love of god let people think this is good' feelings. So, yeah! I'm rambling. Whoops. Uh, just go read chapter one before I bore you to death. Oh also! This is heavily based off the song 'One Foot' by WALK THE MOON, hence the title, and you should maybe listen to it while reading this.
> 
> ~Hammie

First impressions can be tough. She knows that- she’s known that- from the many times it’s been ingrained into her by her mother. But having the same first impression over and over again gives her an unprecedented amount of leeway. Alex gets to see how a person will react to different statements, what to do and what not to do, the ways the brain ticks off little boxes of expectations. With that stated, she thinks she’s gotten quite good at picking up on signals from the many times she’s ‘met’ Jonas.

He doesn’t like talking about his past, or hers, or anyone’s; for that matter. His interest is in the present, and in the future. Trying to make something of himself that isn’t what everyone sees. She figures that’s what she used to be like, before the looping started. Searching for a purpose, for someone who understands, but hesitant to hold out a hand for fear of getting burned. Which is why he’s always surprised when Alex defends him on the ferry, when she tries to get to know him on the docks, walks with him in the woods as a friend rather than a foe. But she can tell he thanks her for it, in his own little ways.

Offering to pull the lever when one of them could be electrocuted. The first-instinct shouts of her name whenever they get into trouble. Fighting with Ren over who was the better asset as a protector. Not really needed, as she knew what was coming before anyone else in their group expected it, though Alex thought it was… Endearing, how hard he tried to be good. Jonas’s confession on their way back to town simply reveals it in a harsher light, and the first time she remembered being surprised- almost scared- because even if it wasn’t a reflection of who he was in the present, she knew what he was very suddenly capable of.

They haven’t hit that point in the night this run-around. At the moment they’re still around the campfire on the beach, when they thought it was going to be a normal- if boring- night on the island. But she knows better now. The motions are the same, following a small confrontation they enter truth or slap, she chooses not to oust Ren to Nona this time (she’s done it in the past, and in the end there’s no point); and after a few more awkward rounds they head for the caves.

Jonas is fiddling around on his phone, trying to get signal so he can send a message to his dad. She already knows that, even if they haven’t talked about it. But Alex is good at faking conversation by now. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Oh, uhm. I kinda promised my dad I’d call him, but I can’t get any signal, so…” There’s a sigh, as his free hand goes to rub against the back of his neck. “Never used to be this protective.”

“Sorry. I should’ve warned you before we left-”

“No no, it’s okay. I’ll just shoot him a text in case I walk into some bars or something.”

They lapse slowly into silence, before Alex gestures vaguely toward the fence, “Wanna help me over this thing? I have a feeling Ren is waiting for us.”

“Yeah. C’mon,” Jonas stoops down onto one knee while cupping his hands together just off the ground, shrugging his shoulders as if to say ‘climb on.’ The gesture is enough to make her smile, which is a rarity now. “I’ll boost you over.”

There’s a muttered thanks as she fits the ball of her foot into his palms and pushes up, while he lets her brace against his collarbones in the movement of lifting her enough to grab hold on the top of the chain link and vault over. He’s easy in following after, tall enough that he can latch onto whatever footholds he needs and drop over to the other side. From their experiences, Alex knows it’s because he’s done so a thousand times in a thousand different iterations of himself. But Jonas doesn’t. Sometimes, she slips up, drops a hint about something that the others don’t understand yet. Those nights seem to go wrong the fastest.

So she’s learned to keep her head down about everything. Ren is standing by the mouth of the cave, struggling with his backpack zipper, and she takes Jonas’s lead once he starts walking. Let the motions play out before she can have a little bit of free will. It feels like a joke, to think of it that way, but-

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how weird do you think this is gonna be?” Oh. Right, he tries to make conversation here. Smaller details are easier to forget, when she has to focus on the tasks that get them through the night. 

“One. Not weird at all.”

Her response is monotone and disinterested enough that it might have dissuaded him, but instead he offers up a rueful smile. “I dunno. Let’s just see- I feel like Ren knows his creepy caves.”

Alex goes silent. For someone who couldn’t know what was coming next, he certainly hit the nail on the head with his foreshadowing statements and deja-vu. From there it’s a blur of acted conversation, Ren’s oh-so-enjoyable ‘cupcake town’, the caves and the game. Like the entire island is just a stage set so that the Sunken can get a kick out of the show. Of course, no matter how close she gets to them, she’ll never understand the machinations of whatever controls the hive mind ghost. Not-ghosts? Whatever it is. The only goal she’s had in mind over the course of her personal purgatory is figuring out how to defeat them without trapping herself again.

A hard reset hadn’t worked- she needed to be ‘in the room’ for that, per say. Just convincing them to leave had proved harder than originally thought, seeing as some of them had more control than others, and the ones that did wanted revenge more than acceptance. But if she didn't figure it out soon, she had a feeling she was going to go insane. Already there had been smaller changes, like they wanted to see how she could react, a lab rat in a maze. The thought does nothing for her already pessimistic mindset. Jonas takes notice, seeing as their walk inside the cave had just started.

Their sneakers squeak softly against too-slick rock, freshwater pool reflecting off of the cave walls, creating a shimmer after effect to the crystalline something-or-other that made up the main cavern. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” Alex’s voice comes out as more of a croak than she means for it too. Quickly, she clears her throat, “Yeah, it’s beautiful.”

“...You okay?” Her head whips around, because that’s new, and he must take it as hostile; because Jonas is trying to backpedal as soon as he spots it. “I mean- it’s not my place to ask, but- Ren said you did this sometimes. Back on the Ferry.”

Right. The patented ‘Alex freak outs.’ The ones he liked to describe as a reboot of sorts. Now she knew it was just her way of coming out of one loop and going straight into another. She didn’t know about it, for long it took her to realize that she was back in the middle of it all, and the dawning horror that came with the feeling. For now, Alex attempts to ignore it. Nods her head to his inquiries, offering up a smile that is too fake even with her- by now- stellar acting prowess. Apparently Jonas is better at picking up on things than she thought, because for all the times she’s managed to fool her friends into thinking she’s fine, she doesn’t manage to fool him.

But he knows well enough when to drop a subject, at least. So they walk in silence for the rest of the short tunnel, approaching the radio equipment and the graffiti. Alex always wants to prolong these moments. The short ones she gets with Jonas, when it’s just the two of them, and he can let down his guard a little. He needs them, just like she needs them, so that they can feel normal again. His first thought is the large dresser, slowly pushing his hands over wood and glancing for a key or way in. On the other hand, she runs her palm along wet stone and spray paint, tracing out each letter of the phrase.

‘SAW THE MAN, BUT NOT THE DOG.’

The same every time. As was the first portion, which Jonas would always skim over in his quick look into the cave.

‘SEE A MAN ABOUT A DOG.’

She hears the radio click on behind her, and it’s like a cold claw has wound its way around her neck, as her head whips around to see the source. And it’s just Jonas, looking over her like one might a caged or feral animal, one hand on the receiver and the other out to placate her. Both of them share a look, one which lays bare everything Alex tries to hide, eyes locked on one another in the way that a drowned man spots a light on the sea. That’s what she is, isn’t she? A drowned, doomed sailor, waiting for a rescue that will never come. He opens his mouth to speak, but she’s already headed for the equipment, because she knows what she has to do. She knows it can’t last forever.

This time, she doesn’t even have to turn it on- just flicks a few switches and adjusts dials in second nature, slowly speaking into the microphone, “It’s Jonas and Alex. We’re in the caves- can anyone hear us?”

Pressure builds, and her ears close as if she’d just dived underwater. Her counterpart has his head turned skyward. “Uhm. Do… Do you see the glowy triangle light thing, too?”

“Yeah.” The handheld radio is out of her pocket, tuning, tuning, until her ears pop as she hits the first frequency. “Trick of the light.”

But it can’t be a trick when she’s controlling it. When the lines cross, slowly reach across the roof of the cave, bleeding from yellow to blue to red, whining against the confines of their reality. One she’ll punch through, in just a few moments. Jonas is shouting something about the light, how it shouldn’t be able to do that, how he can’t understand what’s happening. Asking if she’s okay. She’s fine- she’ll always be fine- but Alex can’t say the same for him. The next triangle forms slowly, in that same gradient of light, and he finally says something she can make out against all the noise when her eyes come back into focus from the sheer amount of color that had assaulted them not a moment earlier.

“What is- what’s- is this you?” Jonas is shouting above the high and heady screech of radio static, of voices all singing their wavelengths with one another, looking to her for guidance. For safety. She can’t take it anymore.

“Yeah. It’s me.” Alex is not afraid of the consequences now, because no one remembers much after this. When the Sunken begin to shift their memories in their heads like putty. “It’s always been me.”

His eyebrows furrow, and hazel eyes reflect blue water on red light. “Always… Been you? What do you mean always? Alex-”

The world spins upside down in a horrible play of vertigo, before it all goes white. That doesn’t last long, of course, and Jonas is still beside her when the vision of the submarine begins to play. A slow sink into the water, enveloped completely as the resounding screech of metal on rock echoes through their minds. He covers his ears, but she embraces it, heaving a sullen sigh as the explosion rocks the seafloor. Nothing new. Nothing to be afraid of. They could hurt her, of course, but she’s seen everything by now. She has resigned herself to this life. This slow descent into agony, as punishment for something her ancestors did.


End file.
